Five lessons I learned at my first CPAC

posted at 8:40 am on February 13, 2012 by Tina Korbe

On the second night of CPAC, at the Ronald Reagan banquet to honor Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, ACU Chairman Al Cardenas asked all the attendees to stand — and then sit down gradually according to how many CPACs they had attended. I was among the first group to sit. Before this year, I had never had the opportunity to attend the conference in person. As it turns out, physical presence counts. An indefinable energy courses through the conference. So many personalities in a single place creates productive friction, serves as a powerful reminder that it’s possible to approach conservatism from countless angles. My top five lessons are drawn primarily from what I observed of the atmosphere — not from the texts of preplanned remarks. With that, I give you the list:

5. Conservatives might share certain core ideas, but no two individuals are alike. That means, then, that no two conservatives are exactly alike. One attendee’s favorite speech might be another’s best background for a nap. It’s good to remember that in the quest to develop and support conservative candidates for House, for Senate, for president. If our definition of a conservative is “someone who thinks exactly like me,” we’ll never be satisfied that a candidate is a conservative. If, instead, our definition of a conservative is broader — a proponent of limited government, say, or something similar — then we’ll be more apt to find a candidate to support.

4. Goethe was right when he admonished individuals to balance thought and action in their lives. The poet wrote: “Once one knows what really matters, one ceases to be voluble. And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking — and these are the sum of all wisdom. Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out. Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and, if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.” Unless we take action on our ideas, they are incomplete. For how long now have conservatives written that entitlements need to be reformed, that the debt must be reduced? Yet, here we are, still fighting the same battles. That’s not to discount the many successes of the conservative movement nor to suggest that the day will ever come when we’ll be able to stop fighting (progressives are persistent!), but I think it’s good to remember that if every conservative organization actually did manage to do its job perfectly, the organizations themselves could dissolve. We’d have no need of groups to advocate incessantly for entitlement reform or debt reduction or any other pet conservative cause. Perfection isn’t possible, but action is. We say all the time that we must win the 2012 elections on the basis of our ideas — but it will take action to disseminate those ideas door to door and to turn voters out at the polls. It’s productive to come together amongst ourselves and discuss and debate our differences as at CPAC or through the primary process, but then we need to test our thought by action. The time is ripe to pick candidates to support in the upcoming elections and to take action on their behalf.

3. Friendships based on common principles are especially valuable. I have friends whose company I enjoy because we share superficial interests; we like to eat the same food, play the same games, watch the same sports, shop the same stores, etc. I also have friends whose company I enjoy because we share ideas. My friends in the conservative movement belong to the second camp and my attachment to them runs deeper because I know we’re not undermining each other out in the world. We’re working for the same causes. While Lesson 5 dictates that I shouldn’t expect any of my friends to share 100 percent of my ideas — and to recognize that that just keeps me sharp, this lesson reminds me that a true community is defined less by physical proximity and more by sympathetic aims. Physical proximity helps — but it’s not enough to really bind hearts and minds together.

2. It’s said all the time that culture is upstream from politics. It’s really true. Not a lot of A-list Hollywood celebrities were present at CPAC, but a few famous folks were there. For that matter, just a handful of comedians, musicians and other entertainers of any degree of fame were there — and, to judge by the attention they received, conservatives are still hungry for culture. As I’ve written before, we don’t need conservative art, but we do need conservatives to create. It’s a subtle distinction, but it matters. CPAC definitely has me thinking about ways to encourage conservatives to go into the arts.

1. Most importantly of all, the biggest ideas don’t necessarily come from the biggest names. One of my favorite panels of the conference came on the last day, when a handful of Tea Party activists compared and contrasted the Tea Party movement with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Former stay-at-home mom Jennifer Stefano, in particular, stood out to me; she’s got more pep than Vitamin C, and her grasp of the stakes in the 2012 election came through in her every expression and word. On the same panel, Dana Loesch said it best, “Don’t let anybody tell you you’re any less important than any one else in this movement because it’s not true.” Conservatism appeals to me because it respects the individual and seeks as its goal nothing more nor less than human flourishing. To conservatives, every single person matters. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this movement?

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Tea Party activists compared and contrasted the Tea Party movement with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Well that must have been interesting because I really don’t see any way these two “movements” are comparable beyond the fact the media has declared them so.

The Tea Party rally required permits, paying for security, porta-potties, and respect for public property. The occupods took over public property, destroyed it, defecated wherever they wanted, attacked police, and finally got kicked out of McPherson Square when the rat population exceeded the vermin population that was there with their silly signs.

In short, the Tea Party Movement wants to see a better America and better government. The occupy filth only want to tear down this nation. It really is that simple.

Conservatives might share certain core ideas, but no two individuals are alike. That means, then, that no two conservatives are exactly alike…If our definition of a conservative is “someone who thinks exactly like me,” we’ll never be satisfied that a candidate is a conservative.

Maybe so but the fact of the matter is that one can run as an “outside the beltway” politician but one can not run a viable political party, Presidential administration, or political association without “inside the beltway” crowd.

5. Conservatives might share certain core ideas, but no two individuals are alike. That means, then, that no two conservatives are exactly alike.

Most definitely agreed.

I have a B.A. in Musical Theatre from a small Christian College.
I live in Alabama.
I have a job in the manufacturing sector at a local plant.
I am a born-again Southern Baptist.

And… I have chosen to support Romney in this primary.

The point is, these things are not mutually exclusive. Neither are they inconsistent or unusual.

When you try to group people into neat little sterotypical units, you forget that everyone is an individual. So, attempting to define what it is that ALL Conservatives need to believe is silly. Saying that someone is not Conservative because they have chosen to support Candidate X,Y, or Z is equally silly.

There is NO Purity Test. And no one is looking for a candidate that is “someone who thinks exactly like me,”

What they are looking for is, as Sarah Palin said last night on Fox News, Someone who will Instinctively look right. Not someone who will instinctively ask the MSM what the least offensive course of action will be.

In other words, there is a Loyalty Test going on out there. Not Purity.

The base learned fist hand about trust in the Continuing Resolution Battle that took place not 90 days after giving the Republicans a Sweeping Victory in 2010.

Any Idiot knows if you have to negotiate for what you want you start by ASKING FOR MORE THAN YOU WANT.

So how did Boehner and company cut $100 billion from the budget as promised? Did they propose $300 Billion in cuts so they could negotiate down to $100 Billion?

NO!

They proposed $60 Billion in cuts and muttered some nonsense about Pro Rata. (I defy you to find one mention of the words pro rata in September or October of 2010.)

Then, when the ‘deal’ (and I use the word lightly – more like shelacking) was finally struck they whine about how it was “The Best Deal We Could Get.”

NO!

It was the best deal you tried for!
And voters know it and are mistrustful. Sarah gets it. None of the candidates do.

Word on the street is that Romney bought muchos tickets and shipped his Democrat buddies in to rig the vote.

timberline on February 13, 2012 at 9:12 AM

.
#8) Avoid, at all costs, the temptation to degrade yourself by lowering your rhetoric to the level of the destruction minded liberal propagandists by tearing down elements within your own party. That’s the job of the anti-American socialist.

Libs continue to try to live out a flawed theory, but their critical thinking skills are insufficient to help them realize that their theory is based on erroneous premise: unless the governed specifically say otherwise, the State is all-powerful because it represents the collective will of the governed.

They protect that premise by not listening to the voice of the governed that would limit the State, much like a glutton who knows no limits on his appetite.

Unless we take action on our ideas, they are incomplete. For how long now have conservatives written that entitlements need to be reformed, that the debt must be reduced? Yet, here we are, still fighting the same battles. That’s not to discount the many successes of the conservative movement nor to suggest that the day will ever come when we’ll be able to stop fighting (progressives are persistent!)

Why are we still fighting the same ole battles? The same reason we are no closer to winning them–we place a higher value these days on something as idiosyncratic as “electability” than on principles. We’d rather win the election than win the war. We want the best smooth talker, the best debater, the best speech giver. Tired of Obama and the progressives’ bulls#!t? Nominate a better bulls#1ter to take the election away! If we slow the race to socialism down, we can get used to it and it won’t feel so bad and we can live with it, but at this speed it’s just too much!
On the other hand, perhaps we shouldn’t worry about particular electoral outcomes until we quit looking like run-of-the-mill politicians telling people what we think they want to hear, and get back to basics with the blessings of liberty which can only be realized by a limited government doing it’s only job– safeguarding our unalienable rights.

“As I’ve written before, we don’t need conservative art, but we do need conservatives to create.”

Amen to that. The “culture warriors” in the conservative movement are wasting their energy trying to enact laws banning this type of film (kiddie porn, yes, there SHOULD be laws against that) or that type of video game, when they really need to direct their money and effort toward supporting conservative-created entertainment. Give the mainstream Hollywood machine competition, not a government-run bureau of standards & practices that all studios and independent creators must abide by. (Yes, I’m aware nobody in the GOP race is really calling for that, though I’m sure Santorum would secretly love to see something like that put in place.)

I thought that #1 would be: Don’t rely on bogged-down hotel internet! I heard from several people that it was an issue this year. With the explosion of conservative blogging and social media, CPAC definitely needs to address this.

The “teaparty” and it candidates will be seen and heard from again. The “fleabaggers” will be sceen on tv destroying someones business. One party promotes free enterprise, the other destroys it; it’s really that simple…

they really need to direct their money and effort toward supporting conservative-created entertainment. Give the mainstream Hollywood machine competition, not a government-run bureau of standards & practices that all studios and independent creators must abide by. (Yes, I’m aware nobody in the GOP race is really calling for that, though I’m sure Santorum would secretly love to see something like that put in place.)

And according to the quotes on the Wikipedia pages for Sherwood Pictures and their last film, Courageous:

Courageous opened at #4 in the box office, beating out all other Hollywood movies also debuting that weekend. Through November 2, 2011, Courageous grossed over $28 million in theaters, and as of January 8, 2012 grossed a Domestic Total of $34,311,609…Sherwood’s films have earned back their budgets dozens of times over…Courageous made eight times its budget in its first ten days in theaters.

Courageous was made with a budget of $1 million dollars, but grossed over $34 million. Their last two films, Fireproof and Courageous, have both received critical acclaim.

Sherwood Pictures shows it can be done. You personally may not agree with their worldview, but they are proving that conservative ideas can compete–even with limited budgets–with the trash Hollywood produces throwing away millions of dollars. It’s the old “build it and they will come” concept. There are audiences hungry for films with high minded ideals. Think of the success of the LOTR series and the Narnia films.

I think the things we conservatives need to internalize are these very things: persistence and long-term planning. Persistence in promoting conservatism as a worthy philosophy, getting the conservative message out to people who may not have ever heard it articulated well and, especially, how it can benefit their lives, and in general, being much more visible as conservatives, in whatever venue we find ourselves.

We hear endlessly how liberals have taken over entertainment and education and they have. But they obviously didn’t do it overnight. And obviously, we won’t do it overnight either, but that shouldn’t stop us from taking a page from their playbook and begin to counter their infiltration with a conservative infiltration.

BTW, Tina, I’ve heard lately a reference to Reagan likening conservatism to a three-legged stool–fiscal responsibility, social conservatism and a strong national defense. If any of those stools are missing or are weakened or strengthened to the detriment of the others, the stool will not stand. I would submit that Reagan conservatism consists of equal balances of all three.

Very nice post, Tina. With nearly 100% accuracy I already can predict who here at HA will not bother to read this. Little lone comment on it. Tina, there are a lot of us in the art/creative side of things that are Conservative. We for the most part are surrounded by the other side. I am fortunate in one sense to have many honest liberal acquaintances. We have delightful conversation with 0 animosity toward one another. Conversely there are those on the other side lacking even the slightest degree of tolerance, this keeps one on guard, as it must. Being black balled because of ones personal core philosophy is never fun. I can assure you of that. We can’t all openly comport ourselves in the manner of Andrew. Though I do live vicariously through him from time to time. Thanks again for your reflections on the time at CPAC. Glad you enjoyed!

The “teaparty” and it candidates will be seen and heard from again. The “fleabaggers” will be sceen on tv destroying someones business. One party promotes free enterprise, the other destroys it; it’s really that simple…

mmcnamer1 on February 13, 2012 at 10:41 AM

Yes, but sadly we’ll see the “racist, homophobic, hate-filled” TEA Party, and the “noble, grass roots, justice seeking” fleabaggers on the evening news.

There is NO Purity Test. And no one is looking for a candidate that is “someone who thinks exactly like me,”

jaydee_007 on February 13, 2012 at 10:00 AM

I don’t entirely agree with that. Watching the commentary here, and in other places, I get a clear impression that a lot of people in fact are looking for only someone who thinks exactly as they do, and they are not willing to accept anyone else. I have never yet found a politician who believes 100% what I do. So I don’t really care for any of our current candidates, but I’m willing to accept ANY one of them in a heartbeat over Obummer.

And as this relates to Tina’s lesson #5

no two conservatives are exactly alike.

I was raised Catholic but now atheist, BS Engineering from a military academy, military active duty for 4 years and defense contractor ever since, hardcore fiscal conservative (including entitlements) but fuzzy moderate on some social issues, definite Darwin fan but absolute AGW denier – absolutely anti-lib/Dem. Try finding any candidate who fits that mold.

Indeed, sometimes I get the feeling that the definition of a “true conservative” is being able to call the other guy a RINO before he can call you one. Sort of the conservative version of Godwin’s Law.

BTW, Tina, I’ve heard lately a reference to Reagan likening conservatism to a three-legged stool–fiscal responsibility, social conservatism and a strong national defense. If any of those stools legs are missing or are weakened or strengthened to the detriment of the others, the stool will not stand. I would submit that Reagan conservatism consists of equal balances of all three.

Thank you Tina for your perspective, I always read and enjoy your posts. I like your perspective, it is a open minded willing to learn type. I want my perspective to be like that. I know my values and the principles they came from, always willing to learn how to better live them. Thanks!

That was my 4th time going, and my 1st as a non-student. My favorite part of the whole thing was the camaraderie and the overall excitement of both the speakers and attendees.

Next year, I’m going to make a trip out of it and go for the full four days. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend on Saturday. I missed out on too many of the good speakers from earlier in the week.

Also, I passed Ed in the hallway but failed to say hello. He looked like a man on a mission.

Conservatism appeals to me because it respects the individual and seeks as its goal nothing more nor less than human flourishing. To conservatives, every single person matters. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this movement?

“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.”